Getting back into Classical Music, Part 1
I’m doing a recording session and playing a concert with the Northwest Symphony (I think? I don’t even know the name of the group I just showed up on time for rehearsal)…
This might sound completely dumb, but let me say - playing Ravel is like, EVERYTHING I HATE about playing classical music. Someone remarked to me that the piece (Daphnis et Chloe) is pretty, and I agreed without thinking. In actuality, I find the piece, even listening to it, to be tedious and laborious, expressive for the sake of being expressive rather than full of feeling…
I spent most of rehearsal marveling how in classical music, for me, something can be “pretty” where “pretty” is a flat adjective. ”Oh, this piece has all of the stuff and structure of pretty” where the “stuff and structure” is 99% constructs I hate in classical music.
